On the Path in the Woods
by NocturnalAntihero
Summary: The story of Little Red Riding Hood contorted.
1. Chapter 1

Basket in hand, she crept through the twilight-darkened forest. It surprised her little that the sun lay to rest before she did; she had made this journey often enough in the past to know that departure at dawn did not ensure arrival by dusk. She hated the journey; the enitre day the only thoughts that filled her head were anger-hardend and directed at that woman who met her every time she reached her destination. The old woman who fain bothered to thank her when she arrived with food for the week, whose mouth opened only to criticise, and whose right hand had an amazing affinity for the girl's head.

Eighteen years. Eighteen years she'd made this journey, ever since she was five years old and deemed old enough to pass through the woods alone to her grandmother's house. Those first years, those years when she believed the stories of beasties in the woods, they had been hell on the girl; gripped with fear she fled through the woods, collapsing on her grandmother's doorstep a panting, quivering mess. One week, when she was seven, she thought she heard a twig snap behind her, and so overcome with terror was she that no bird pursued by the hawk flew faster than she. It happened that in her flight she did not pay as careful attention to the ground as she should have, and a malicious root caught the poor girl's ankle, sendng her sprawling across the forest floor. Fear allowed her no space for thought; she merely stood up and continued on her way. Her grandmother cared less for the blood pouring from the girl's knee than she did for the three eggs broken in the fall.

By the time she turned eleven, spirits and baddies were childish folly, and to prove her fearlessness she forced herself to walk the path through the woods. Her legs may have quaked every step, her eyes may have darted to the shadows between every tree, her palms may have sweated so fiercely that she fain could hold the heavy basket, but she walked the entire path.

She first felt the eyes in her back when she was fifteen. Before then, she had either been so terrified by the stories her mother told her of evil beings in the forest that any sense of something following her caused immediate flight, or concentrating so hard on repressing the insinct that due caution was ignored for the sake of pride. But at fifteen she no longer needed to consider the terror; he mind thought clearly enough to -recognise the discomfort that had frightened her so severely in her earlier years. Something followed her. She whipped around to face the whatever-it-was that had tracked her so far and so long, but nothing greeted her except empty path. Sometimes she walked backwards, in case the whatever-it-was revealed itself only when she moved, but still she saw nothing. It had always been a mere feeling, an inkling that something was behind her, following her, watching her. But the day that she heard footsteps behind her she ran as she had not run since she was ten years old, ran to escape the whatever-it-was without a thought to pride or curiosity. After that day she never again heard the footsteps. But still whatever-it-was followed.

Three years later, she wandered along the path. Her mother's scolding floated through her mind; the girl always walked in a green tunic and dark brown trousers (an inattention to her female physique that her grandmother commented on several times per visit), and for that was by her mother thus berated: "Child, look at you, more tree than girl! Mark me, Ane, should you continue to travel thus attired to see your grandmother, a hunter will mistake you for his quarry!" As she had every week since her fifth birthday, she resigned herself to the acceptance of the proffered red cape, and as she had every week since her fifth birthday, sought the cluster of pine trees surrounding an outcropping of rock, and stuffed the cape beneath part of the rock. The you're-being-followed-hey-stupid-look-behind-you-this-could-be-dangerous feeling had mellowed over the years to the point where she accepted it as a part of her journey as normal as the trees and faint smell of magnolia and honeysuckle, even in the autumn (the attempt to figure out the tendencies of the flora of the forest she had long since goven up; it seemed governed by laws which superceded those of nature). When a twig snapped to her left, she did not bother to raise her head to it; anticipation of her reception kept a fair weight upon it. When the arrow flew between her legs, however, she shrieked and jumped high enough to hit that bird fleeing its fate as dinner. The hunter raced to her, as shocked as she to see another living being in the woods. Ane assumed that the whatever-it-was would leave her in the presence of a tangible human, but it did not, if anything it intensified and grew more oppresive. The hunter apologised for his rudeness (Ane thought it more carelessness than rudeness that would prompt one person to accidentally shoot another, but she let it go), and offered to accompany her the rest of the way. She was very please by the offer, but her acceptance was greeted by a sharp twinge from her whatever-it-was (when had it become _hers_?).

Following that meeting, the hunter guided her regularly through the woods. With every meeting, her whatever-it-was gave a stronger twinge; usually she ignored it, for the hunter was charming company. He offered to carry the basket for her (she refused), and always insisted on taking her arm or supporting her back (where was this man when I was five? Ane thought) as they walked together. The hunter slowed her considerably, something that Ane was certain would annoy her grandmother to no end, and truth to tell she might even have been glad of an excuse not to walk with him quite so often. But her grandmother was more than pleased to learn the cause of Ane's delay, and from that point on seemed disappointed when the girl arrived to well on schedule. While Ane's grandmother looked forward to a well-attended wedding, her mother's eyes darkened whenever the idea crossed her mind; should Ane not be able to complete the weekly journeys, she would once again be forced to take up the torch, and her visits were no more pleasant that those of her daughter. The daughter tried simply not to think on it; she supposed it was no bad thing to have a man so close to engaged, yet with every visit he grew more possessive, and with every meeting her whatever-it-was gave a stronger twinge. One morning Ane nearly fell over when the twinge hit, and when she anticipated a reception from cool, welcoming earth she found herself instead wrapped up in arms that could fain hold her wieight, and she not the heaviest of women. His face too close, he asked after her health; she responded with the truth: she was fine, just hit by a feeling of unexpected severity. He sighed, rested his head on hers, said he loved her too, and kissed her soundly. The terror that gathered in her body rivaled that of the six-year-old who had fled whatever-it-was; at that moment she would gladly have fled the hunter to face her whatever-it-was.

This morning she walked from her front door, basket in hand, red riding-hood about her soulders, and into the forest. Glancing quickly about her, she stole from the path into the grove to her rock. Ane tugged at the cord at her throat, and let the cape gently fall to the ground. She knelt to stuff it under the rock when something caught her eye that made her stop. A single rose, its petals a deep crimson that put her cape to shame, rested in the place where her cape usually hid. Carefully she picked it up and held it to her nose: the scent was like nothing she had ever smelt before; it was velvet, it was an addiction, it drew her in deeper than any flower had any right to- but then again, this was not any flower. This was a rose- _her_ rose.

She said nothing of the rose when the hunter accosted her that morning. By that time the dew was gone from the leaves, and the stench of his sweat far outpowered the gentle green perfume of the spring-drenched trees. Ane thought wistfully of the rose in her basket, and wished to assail herself with its beauty again, but she feared a misinterpreted and overzealous reaction from her companion. He chatted on companionably as they walked, about his hunting, about her, about how much he loved her, about their wedding, about their house near her sweet old grandmother (only a strong conscious effort prevented Ane from shuddering at the thought). She listened to about every fifth word, and in one of the gaps a sound caught her ear, a sound which she had not heard for years. She stopped.

He appeared somewhat surprised by her sudden halt, and ask if everything was alright. She ignored him completely, only stared into the forest. There- she heard it again. Faint, but the footfall was still there. Now the hunter had heard it also; he released her to ready his bow in case any creature should leap from the forest to attack his future bride. She caught a glimpse of silver, and when his back was turned stepped slightly to the left to peer around the tree that blocked her view. The wolf held her eye for but a moment before it turned and disappeared through the forest. Without thinking she stepped gingerly off the path, and gave chase.

Her feet made barely a sound as she ran, not in flight but herself following. The only sounds, which she ignored entirely, were the crashing of a hunter's boots and the plaintive cry of "ANE!"


	2. Chapter 2

Ane ran as fast as she could to keep the wolf in sight. She ran until her legs ached and she could no longer hear the hunter behind her. At last the darkening forest obscured her vision so severely that the wolf slid from her vision. It was twilight, and she was off the path. Alone in the woods, and lost besides. In that instant she was five years old again, paranoid and terrified with it, but this time she couldn't even make her legs move. Paralysed with fear, she clutched the basket with both hands and watched the tree disappear into the darkness. When something brushed against her leg she jumped sideways into a tree with enough force for it to return the favor and knock her over. The basket rolled away from her, and through the crack in the lid her rose fell out. She stretched a quivering hand to it, but instead of petal her fingers stroked fur. Ane's eyes slid up his leg, followed the gentle slope of his shoulder, and gradually came to rest at the great yellow eyes of her silver-haired wolf. He sniffed the rose, then slowly turned to nuzzle her forehead. Ane sighed, and let her head rest upon the forest floor.

She was only dimly aware when her wolf stepped over her shock-frozen body and into the deepening night. Slowly she righted herself; tree attacks were not something which her body was accustomed to dealing with, and she figured a moment or two to get all her brain cells back to where they were supposed to be was not to be counted as a thing of weakness under the circumstances. Ane avoided using the treacherous tree for support, and as a result sway with the breeze as her legs reaccustomed themselves to this standing nonesense. A hand reached out to steady her; her head snapped to its source with an alacrity that the rest oher was not prepared for, and as a result she overbalanced and fell into the person who had meant to help her. The texture of unclothed skin underneath; she stiffened against his chest automatically and her head shot up, trying to pretend that her confused and swimming eyes directed a glare of reproach- at a pair of brilliant yellow eyes.

Before Ane could convince her brain to conceive the possibility before it her hand had lifted itself and sought some mark of familiarity in this strange man's face. He neither blinked nor fliched as her fingers stroked his forehead, ran down his nose, drew slowly across his lips and skimmed his cheek. Only when her hand tangled itself in his shaggy dark hair (how exactly did a silver-furred wolf become a shaggy dark-haired man?) did he move, and it was to take the arm which had been offered to her and slide it around her back, gently drawing her to him. She noticed in passing that he wore a roughly tied wrap rather than trousers, and wondered whether this was some strange shapeshifter's tradition.

Shapeshifter?

Her brain was finally waking up to the notion that she stood in the arms of a man who, less than an hour before, had been a wolf. Impossible, it said. The man must have been here waiting. But no, see? said her hand, His eyes, his eyes are that same shade of yellow. They are the same eyes. He saw her confusion mounting, and with a grin lifted his other hand from his side: between his long fingers was a crimson rose. Ane looked to the fallen basket- there lay hers from the morning. She turned her gaze back to the wolf-man, who handed her the second rose. "I...feel I must apologise." Ayn shuddered slightly: if before she had had any doubts that this man was not entirely human, the unnatural, no, not un_natural_, un_human_ quality of his deep voice, rich and soft like the roses he had given her, not unlike the growl of a wolf, put them at once to rest. "This was not how I had intended you to encounter me for the first time."

Ane started slightly. "Then this isn't the first time you've watched me?"

"I have...protected you...agaisnt the untoward creatures of this place for many years."

_Shapeshifter._

Either her good sense or her fear instit kicked in, she had neither the time nor the inclination to bother discerning which it was, and she ripped out of the wolf-man's arms, fought with her body to stay upright and failed; she fell, fell and rose again to keep on running. Through the forest she ran, away from that thing, her whatever-it-was, away. Leaves whipped across her face. Her panting breaths punctured the quiet night air. At last her lungs ached and her legs begged her to stop; she obeyed, and looked around. She did not see much- here a trunk, there some leaves, that might even have been a rock off to her left. Ane laughed bitterly- had she really hoped to see the path? As the glances she threw around her became more desperate, the forest seemed to come alive with sound. To her left, a leaf flicked. Behind her, crickets mocked her confusion. From every direction came little sounds that, in daylight, meant nothing more than the healthy noises of a healthy forest, but in the abysmal dark of night resounded like warnings against an enemy that she knew not how to evade. Far off in the distance, Ane thought she saw a light. She heaved a massive sigh of relief; perhaps all was not lost after all. For the first time in living memory she was happy that the hunter had come looking for her; at least he would take her out of the dark, and out of the warpath of her fears. A voice in the back of her head would not stop niggling as she walked, it would not stop insisting that the path from which she had strayed to follow her wolf (Ane shivered slightly) was in the other direction, surely this light was leading her farther _away_, not closer _to_.

Ane paused. With every step the voice grew stronger, and as afraid as she was, desperate to escape the darkness, she could not escape the feeling that the light led her falsely. But who other than the hunter would be out looking for her? And who would know where to look but the man who had followed her so far into the woods? She had nearly resolved to squelch the little voice back into the corner of her mind that it had come from and pursue the light, when an object flew before her. Ane could not hold back a sharp shriek of shock, but calmed somewhat when she saw that it was naught but her basket. She looked around, expecting to see her wolf-man somewhere, but her eyes saw nothing but darkness and dark shapes protruding from it _and the little light, jiggling as though the holder waited for her impatiently to follow_. Ane took a step to do so and nearly tripped over a large furry mass before her. She looked down, and his great yellow eyes gazed levelly back up at her. The light jiggled, and the wolf's paw landed on her foot, snapping her head between to two too quickly and again she had to greet the ground with her hands to steady herself.

Ane blinked rapidly, trying to reconcile her eyes to cooperation. I really, _really_ need to stop doing that, she thought. A cool, damp nose shoved between her palm and her face; her eyes still swam slightly, but she could make out the great silver wolf before her. A tanglible, clearly visible point of refrence had established itself for them, and her eyes wept wih glee that here at last was something they could _see_, and why hadn't she gotten it through her head yet that people don't _see in the dark_. Ane made a mental note to grapple with her eyes later about the whole issue of seeing things, and for the time being contented herself with wiping the tears from her eyes, and burying her face in her wolf's shoulder. (Apparently she had missed the part where she actually leaned into him while her eyes had held her occupied.) Like his human form, the wolf did not move an iota while she clung to him, but she could feel his eyes scanning the forest around him, and the feeling of protection from whatever she needed protecting from gave her such relief that she forgot to be disgusted by the embrace of a shapeshifter.

When at last she had calmed herself enough to move, she thought she heard a voice, that same rich, wolfish, nonhuman voice, but almost (Ane thought) with a touch of sadness, in her head. _Take your basket, Ane. I will lead you to the house you seek._

She bent to pick up the basket. On top of it lay a crimson rose.


	3. Chapter 3

They traipsed through the woods, her hand on his furry back. Immediately he turned their backs on the little beam of light- Ane looked over her shoulder, and it sidled invitation-like forward. At her pause, her wolf spun; she felt his hackles raise, and he sent a low growl in the direction of the light beams. It paused a moment in consideration, then fled. _Things are rarely what they seem in the forest_, chided his voice in her head. _You must be careful. _

Ane only nodded mutely and replaced her hand on the wolf's shoulder. They continued on in silence, and as her frantic terror calmed into a dull prickling under her skin Ane looked around and began to recognise objects as more than That Dark Blotch Between Those Other Dark Blotches. Footsteps to her right: she searched the darkness until the movement grabbed her eyes, and the body of the deer filled in around it. She watched, a disciple mesmerized by the sheer beauty of a yet unexplored cathedral, as the deer fled them and disappeared into the night. She could make out the trees and their leaves as they passed, and when her feet touched upon the path again her eyes had already known and her feet were little surprised. Away in the distance another orb of light cut through the darkness: Ane stopped instantly; again her wolf paused as soon as he felt her hand slide away. He looked back over his shoulder. _Do not be afraid_, he said, _I have brought you to your grandmother's house; can you not see it? That is what the light marks._

She could, she had, and for that very reason had she stopped. Through the lit window she could just barely see the outline of her grandmother's head. It shook, turned and stalked away. Dropping her head, Ane muttered "There is one untoward thing thing in this forest you have not protected me from." When her hand clutched her wolf's fur it shook not with fear, but anger. Ane was just about to tell her wolf that she would rather take her chances with the Floating Light to Nowhere when a sharp cry of "ANE!" snapped her head up. She felt muscle stiffen beneath her hand until a taught and quivering girl rested her hand upon the shoulder of a very convincing statue of a wolf. A shotgun tucked under the approaching hunter's arm caught her attention; it must have caught the wolf's also: she heard _I am afraid I must leave you now_ before he melted into the forest.

Ane tried desperately to follow his trail; the hunter's "Don't worry, love- I think I scared the beast off" frightened her half a foot into the air. Ane only noticed the rose in her hand when she shied away from his touch and nearly pricked herself on it. Distracted (though by whom she hoped he had not guessed), she allowed herself to be led down the remainder of the path to her grandmother's cottage.

The homecoming went much as Ane had expected. As soon as the hunter bade them goodnight, all pretense of concern dropped from the wizened figure; Ane had never known any woman that age capable of such ferocity and would not have believed it possible if it had not terrified the wits out of her since childhood. She hated her grandmother for it, but hated that part of herself just as much that remained frightened after all those years. The old woman lay into her like a cleaver: Where had she been? What had delayed her? Did she have any bloody idea how bloody inconvienient it was to eat so bloody late? How dare she leave the hunter just to go for a trot in the forest? She was bloody lucky that that charming young man hadn't called off the engagement; at her age it would be damn near impossible to hope for another offer, let alone a better one.

Ane bore the tirade in silence (at one point she wondered if her arrival had interrupted anything between her grandmother and the hunter, but dismissed the thought quickly with a barely supressed shudder), and once she thought she heard it draw to a close- for Ane had not listened to a word out of her grandmother's mouth- she retired to her room, closed the door, and collapsed onto her bed. Ane fell asleep with the scent of the wolf's rose entwined in her dreams.

And did not sleep very long; it seemed far too early to be rising when voices from the front room woke her. She attempted to roll over and return to sleep, but the murmurs permeated her thoughts and wound themselves around the black void of not-dream behind her eyelids. Frustrated and underslept, she opened her eyes. Somewhat to her surprise, it was still to darkness that she did so. At the edges of her window hazy swatches of dawn crawled and crept, but Ane still needed to light a candle to see clearly. Failing to find a match, Ane picked up the rose from her pillow and held it to her breast like a talisman against the unseen evils of her bedroom. She walked to the door and opened it slowly; even so the flood of light blinded her: Ane rised the hand that held the rose to shield herself and shied violently from the sudden onslaught.

With a muttered curse to the god of Remembering To Put Useful Things Within Reach Before Needing Them (if there really was such a god, Ane expected he was well used to complaints by now) she righted herself- then promtly grabbed the doorframe to keep from falling over. Curses and pain from stabbing herself with a rosethorn were forgotten in the shock of finding the hunter in deep conversation with her grandmother- holding her basket and readied for travel.


	4. Chapter 4

-1Accepting her reaction as one of blissful rapture, the hunter lay down the basket and strode to Ane. With a grip to arm-wrestle a bear (and win) he held her shoulders, stood a moment just looking at her (oh, Ahrand's star, he's going to butcher me, Ane thought) then wrapped his arms around her as if to smother he bear he had just arm-wrestled. When he released her both their breasts heaved; while Ane tried desperately to catch her breath, the hunter fought back tears to say, "Your grandmother has given her consent- she even agreed to provide the priest- Ane, we can be married on the morrow! And-" he sniffed, "-and, as if that weren't enough," he beamed at the crone, "she bought us a house, just along the hedgerow."

Ane found herself completely incapable of movement. Seeing no reaction from his betrothed, he continued: "I wanted to be able to surprise you…with your wedding dress, when you awoke."

"I want to go."

Her grandmother started. "You want to what?"

Ane swiveled her head to face the shriveled old woman, her eyes as cold as lead and twice as heavy. "I want. To go. Back to my house."

Her grandmother's eyes narrowed, and she took a step towards Ane as though attempting to wrest whatever mutinous thought stood behind the simple request. The effort was wasted: Ane had blurted the phrase before and collaboration between tongue and brain could take place, an act deeply insulting to the latter. In fact, had her grandmother been capable of thought-stealing, all show would have found was an absent minded note to bind a bleeding hand. Before either woman could speak, the hunter picked up the basket. "Of course, love," he said, "how inconsiderate. Shouldn't she be able to bid her mother good-bye, Claire?"

The old woman's lip twitched, a fraction of a centimeter from a snarl. Despite her hostile expression, "Yes, naturally" managed to fight its way from behind her gritted teeth. Granted, her eyes shot poison arrows, but Ane was too tired and shaken to care; she held her wounded hand close, allowed the hunter to take the other, and with reeling mind and blood-soaked rose allowed herself to be led to her mother's house. All the way, the hunter chatted on about the wedding and the house and the children and all the wonderful things that they would do together. All they way, Ane stared straight ahead, searching for a coherent thought to follow.

No presence, benign or otherwise, followed her.


	5. Chapter 5

-1Dawn just barely tinged the forest ; as they walked, tree shadows enveloped them with the last faint traces of the night. Every movement, ever sound called Ane's eyes into the graying darkness, and with each fruitless search she felt the essence of a pat on the back, of a "Nice try, but you would do best to resign yourself, love" voice in her head, though to or what from Ane could not begin to comprehend.

Every time she stopped to peruse the forest (it remained a letter sealed with lead rather than wax, though she could distinctly remember breaking the seal before), Ane felt the hunter's grip on her hand tighten and pull her along. When they came to the rock outcropping Ane thought she would need a chisel to wrest her hand free. It was like something out of a dream she had had, that she would break away from him to run away to the forest. Ane compulsively looked about her when the thought crossed her mind, as though someone who should have been there was not, and when the form was not found, not resignation but loss chewed a hole inside her. The hunter looked at her quizzically; Ane reminded him that she needed to fetch her cape from its hiding spot, and in a brief act of mercy he granted her poor hand a reprieve. How ever small and insignificant the rebellion might have been, making faces to illustrate her frustration as she walked away cheered Ane. She knelt to retrieve her mantle, flung it about her shoulders and fastened the clasp. In doing so, Ane dropped the rose to which she had clung throughout the journey.

She knelt to pick it up and felt the cut on her hand that the thorn had given her groan in its strain; the sudden pain forced her hand closed around the stem of her rose; she breathed deeply to assuage the little pricks of lightning in her palm.

She felt a shift. What kind of shift Ane could not say, only that the state of the cosmos when she dropped the rose was not the same as that when she brought it to her nose. It reminded her faintly of the excursions through the woods she had had as a child, when she would run on the path as fast as she could, convinced that some monster followed her.

_Shapeshifter…_

As soon as she saw the wisp of gray in the forest it was gone; her head in its effort to follow the movement collided smartly with the rock, and the hunter was upon her before she managed to collect her thoughts. Ane's memory - or was it imagination? - plagued her with hazy gray shapes, four-legged things that changed into two - legged things, with yellow eyes and dark murmurs. They came closer and closer to coherency, closer to some form of logic, before the hunter whisked Ane into his arms, and sent his sweet nothings into her head to disrupt her already shaky concentration.

Ane felt her muscles tense; she did not like to be carried when she was perfectly capable of walking, and it embarrassed her terribly that the hunter did so. When she said as much to the man that carried her, he did nothing more than make noises about her own good, and how he must protect her, women are weak, he treasured her as his bride, and further such nonsense that made Ane dreadfully apprehensive to become that bride.

Her mother met them at the door to their cottage. "Ane," she said, "come here." Glad for the excuse to walk on her own feet again, Ane obeyed. Her mother nodded the hunter into the house, where to took the basket, and the women circled the house until they came to the garden. Yune rested her hands absently on the fence and stared into the forest; for a moment, Ane was not sure if her mother had forgotten why she had wanted to speak with Ane.

"Ane," she sighed. "Ane, it is too late for me to atone for my errors. I am only sorry that you had to be their consequence." Yune turned back to her daughter, and let one hand stroke Ane's cheek. Tears fell freely from her eyes when she said, "Believe me this, if nothing else: thought I sent you into the lion's den, my dear, I never did it willingly, I- I always loved you."

"I don't understand, Ma."

Yune shook her head. "No- no, those are stories for another time. It is too late; it would take too long for them to be told now. I have sent you into the lion's den, but you are too precious to me; I will not allow her to keep you. Sending you away is the only way to save you from a fate worse than mine. Go now, while you have the time and the chance. Go, child!"

"But Grandmother- the hunter-"

Ane's mother smirked. "She's my mother, and he is only her underling. Who better to handle them than me? Now _begone_."

It was confusion more than anything else that allowed Ane to obey her mother with the celerity that she did. Her mother had pointed her in the direction of the village, that she might find some refuge there, but without giving a terrible amount of thought to the matter, Ane closed the garden gate behind her and ran into the forest.

Hearing voices behind her, Ane stopped and turned; the hunter had come out into the garden to see what was keeping them, and, finding his bride absent, inquired loudly after her whereabouts. Yune spoke too quietly for Ane to hear, but clearly her answer did not please the hunter. Ane stood transfixed, she could not tear her eyes from the sight of the battle of wits between her mother and (who thought he was) her man. Finally the hunter gave up the struggle against Yune and struck her; Ane cried out when she saw her mother collapse from the force of his blow. The hunter's head snapped in her direction when he heard her voice.

"ANE!"

Ane barely paused a moment; in that moment she saw two choices, to return to the world that had held her captive from birth, or to leave it. Her mother had given her the key, and Ane would use it to unlock whatever door she came too. She ran.

Skirts in hand, she raced around trees, over rocks; she swatted away branches with her elbows when she could, and when she couldn't she ignored the sting they left on her face and neck. Her footsteps and heavy breathing made discerning other sounds as close to impossible as one could come, but she dared not stop to check whether or not he followed her still. Ane ran; though she thought her legs would implode from the strain, she ran.

She ran, that is, until her long red cloak, the red riding hood that her mother insisted she always wear, caught on one of the branches that she could not swat, and in the recoil Ane lost the clasp in the tangle trap of her unbrushed hair. High blood and low sleep did not make for rational thought; Ane clawed at the mess until she found the clasp, but by then her hands were shaking too hard for her to make any headway with the thing. When she heard steps approaching, Ane just closed her eyes and let her head fall onto her shoulder.

Whoever it was that had come to her moved her head to the other shoulder; Ane opened her eyes to see the Wolf, in somewhat more conventional clothing than last night (thought even in a belted tunic and leggings she thought of him as her Wolf), undo the clasp and motion her to follow him.

The wolf. Ane looked down at the rose in her hand, and back at him. This thing, the presence that she had felt, and missed when it had gone, the monster that now saved her- the wolf she had followed the night before. It hadn't been a dream, Ane. Despite the howls of your common sense and fear abiding brain to the contrary, that is your wolf. _Shapeshifter. _Yes, shapeshifter.

He turned back to her, and took her hands in his. "I can help you, " he said, "but you must follow me." Ane nodded mutely, and he led her through the forest again, though this time it was not to the path he brought her, but to what looked like a cave. He made Ane face him again, and when she looked in his eyes the pain she saw pierced her, she reached out to lay a hand on his arm, but the hand she extended was the hand that held the rose, and for a moment it hovered in her hand between them. The Wolf reached up to close his hand around hers, but as he did so a shot rang through the forest, giving the tree next to them a new hole.

"_Unhand my wife!_"

The hunter stood, disheveled and enraged, with his shotgun leveled. The Wolf tried to move Ane behind him, but before he could Ane walked forward. As the hunter saw her approach he lowered his weapon. He made a move as though he would embrace her, but she held up a hand to stop him.

"Allow me to remind you," she said, "that upon your question of marriage I had never given an answer. Your attack upon my mother was in vain; I intended to refuse you at some point regardless of the circumstances."

"Yet you ran? Surely you must have known that I would pursue, Ane."

"Had I not cried out, you would not have known where I had gone. As it is, I break whatever bind I have with my grandmother, and thereby I am sure that I break my bind with you," Ane's voice slowly gathered vehemence. "I will live alone in the forest, if I must, but I sever _all connection!_"

A gale, magic borne on the wings of the wind, rushed around the two men and the woman; it engulfed Ane, and she felt it pick at her, but she was finished, finished with being at the mercy of anyone's will but her own, and she would _not_ be overthrown now, just now when she had realized what little power she had. Still the winds whipped around her, but she fought them; she looked about, and through watery eyes saw that, while the hunter remained largely unharmed, her Wolf was nearly felled by the force of the magic wind. Without thinking she threw her arms around him, pulling him into her, and to the winds that attacked her with double the strength she cried, _ No! I am finished! It will be my life, and it will be my choice! It will always be my choice!_

Ane felt her own power waning; she had given all she had to her escape, first from her marriage then from her grandmother's magic, and she had little left to give. With one final burst of energy she shoved the magic from her, then fainted onto the ground.

She woke only moments later; a hazy shape above her dripped water down into her mouth. When it saw her eyes flutter, it slowly lowered the cup to her mouth, and she drank gratefully. The intake of liquid helped clear her sight; she looked up into the eyes of her Wolf, but pain no longer shone through them; their yellow depths betrayed nothing but innocent concern. She tried to sit, to look around her, but he held her gently down. "It is best that you not move."

Ane agreed; when she tried, her entire body had threatened rebellion. "What…what _was _that?"

Her Wolf shook his head. "I cannot claim to understand. You disrupted a very powerful binding magic; spells as settled as that one had become do not take destruction…delicately."

She decided not to pursue precisely what he meant by 'spells as settled as that one;' its obliteration satisfied her, and that satisfaction was more precious that curiosity. "And my…that…the hunter?"

"He dissipated."

"He _what?_"

The Wolf looked at the spot where a man had previously stood. In its place was a small pile of dust and herbs. "Although a deceptively well crafted one, he was only a simulacrum." The Wolf paused. " He was not a part of the binding spell, but he _is_ your grandmother's magic, and he…caught a draft."

Too much was coming at Ane all at once. She had lived all her life believing that magic didn't exist, that the monster that chased her was only in her head. Yet here she lay, the victor against a powerful spell whose fiancée had only ever been the simulacrum of a man, being watered by a shapeshifter. Ane groaned. She closed her eyes and lay back against the moist, cool earth, and reveled in its uncomplicated presence.

"Ane…"

She opened her eyes; the Wolf reached out and picked up her hand that still held the rose in it. He stared resolutely at her hand as he said, "Ane, you saved me from…that spell. Its power would have killed me. I offer my most heartfelt gratitude.

"But Ane, if you want to stay here, an inherent resistance to malevolent magic will not save you. You must learn how to live among my kind and our ilk.

"Of course, if you choose not to, I can take you back to your village, and you can-"

"No," Ane said. She rose and leaned against her Wolf (partially because the world had just taken a sickening spin). "I don't think I could go back, even if I wanted to. I want to stay, and to learn."

The shape shifter wrapped his arms around his human and held her close against him. He leaned down and smiled into her hair, wondering faintly what her reaction would be when she learned that most of her in-laws were werewolves.


End file.
